Maryland-Duke Postgame Quotes

Maryland Athletics

2-15-2014

Maryland Head Coach Mark Turgeon

Opening Statement:

“Obviously I was proud of my group tonight. We fought through a lot of foul problems, and we were a little impatient offensively in the first half, but we competed. I thought the second half, really the last 15 minutes, I thought we were tremendous. I thought we guarded well. You know, we wanted them to beat us from two. They missed some shots obviously they normally make, but I thought our defense was terrific. Our rebounding was terrific. We really executed, and even the shots we didn’t make at the end in the last two possessions, I thought we got what we really wanted, and executed well. That’s all you can ask as a coach. It’s been a ride. We have been at North Carolina, at Virginia, at Duke, but it has made us so much better. We haven’t won any of them, but it’s made us better. I don’t know how Charles’ [Mitchell] shot didn’t go in. They called on the “Duke gods,” I don’t know what happened. It was rolling in, and then all of a sudden it’s rolling out. It’s a great college basketball game, I just hate that we came up short.”

On Charles Mitchell’s first shot:

“He bobbled it. What a great pass by Seth [Allen]. I have been all over Seth to pass the ball. We went downhill, we faked the ball screen. We had Dez [Wells] going downhill in his right hand, Seth in his left hand, and he just made a tremendous pass. They weren’t going to leave Evan [Smotrycz] and Jake [Layman]. You know, I just wish he could’ve got to the rim quicker, and he did. He bobbled it, then we competed. We got the ball out of bounds and under. The guys kind of willed their way to the basket, and it just didn’t drop. I thought it was in. I don’t know if you ever deserve to win, but I felt like our kids deserved better than what they got at the end.”

On missing playing at Duke:

“Yes, I am going to miss this. What a great place to come play. It reminds me of playing at Kansas, and coaching against one of the all-time best. I’m going to miss it. That was fun, and we played tonight for Maryland. We didn’t play for ourselves, we played for all former coaches, all former players, all former students because we played for Maryland. We knew we weren’t getting them at our place. This was our one chance. We know what it means to Maryland fans. I can’t be more proud of my guys. I hope every Maryland fan feels the same way. I know we’re upset we lost, but our guys gave it all they had. “

On team chemistry to get over loss:

“Oh, we’ll get over this. We’re starting to ball now.”

On the shot from Charles Mitchell:

“No, no. We ran a play for Jake. They switched out. Dez just went and got it. We’ve been doing some hand off stuff. It was lucky we got that good of a shot, to be honest with you. They did a good job taking down what we had, so I thought that was good. The play before I thought we had a better shot. Charles had it a foot from the basket, and you know, that’s when we should’ve scored. That’s disappointing. Charles plays tough, we wouldn’t have been where we were without him. He was tremendous. We’ve got to talk about Damonte Dodd. I mean I’ve been searching, and he went out there and changed the game with some of his shots. I just wish he fouled [Jabari] Parker there at the end, and made him make two free throws rather than a dunk. He’s young, I was really proud of him. I thought Roddy [Peters] had his best game in a long time.”

On Dez Wells in the second half:

“Dez knows he can get to the rim. We started playing a little defense, they were running. They were stopping the break high, stopping it in the back court, and we turned it over a couple times. We played downhill; we ran some isos for Dez. He had the big three in the corner, and I thought we were going to win it. I give Duke credit, they won it for a reason.”

On Jake Layman:

“He did a great job on [Rodney] Hood. He rebounded, and he’s aggressive on offense. Every play it seemed like two guys were guarding him, so he’s making everybody else better. We’ve done some things offensively to make us better. We just have to slow down. You can’t shoot 41% at Duke and win. Jake was tremendous.”